Report of the Strategic Planning and Budgeting Committee (SPBC)

January 9, 2012

Those present included: Dick Wilson, Dan Klotzbach, Michael Thompson, Karla Carney-Hall, Lynda Duke, Matt Kurz, Michael Seeborg, Dan Terkla, Jonathan Green, Tony Bankston, Bob Murray, Trey Short, Linda Biehl, Kevin Sullivan, Stacey Shimizu, Jerry Olson, Patricia Neustel, Rachel Paturi. By telephone: Kathy Lewton and Ceasar Douglas.

Approval of SPBC Notes of December 5, 2011
President Wilson convened the meeting at 12:05 p.m. He stated that a draft of the notes from the December 5 meeting was sent out and approved electronically. President Wilson introduced Karla Carney-Hall, new vice president for student affairs and dean of students, who was present for today’s meeting.

University Salary and Compensation
President Wilson asked Michael Thompson to interpret the previously distributed handouts concerning University salaries and compensation. Michael began with the University Compensation Model, which uses the AAUP Category IIB 80th percentile group for modeling hypothetical compensation projections. The primary objective of the model is to examine the required compensation increases necessary to drive the University’s three professorial ranks to the equivalent of the AAUP Category IIB 80th percentile group over a span of 10 fiscal years (FY 2012 to FY 2021). Based on IWU’s projected average percentage increases in compensation, the approximate costs can be calculated over the same period. In addition, a distribution of costs can be examined in terms of the allocation of resources to salary and salary- defined benefits, the IWU health plan, and the rebuilding of the University’s TIAA-CREF retirement contribution program. The costs observed in the University Compensation Model are University-wide (i.e., faculty, exempt and non-exempt staff).

President Wilson added that the model is self-correcting depending on what we do as well as what other institutions do. For example, the compensation model presented last year was based on a five-year average compensation increase of 3.7% by the Category IIB institutions. This year the five-year average dropped to 3.3%, which is a reflection of institutions adjusting to the evolving economy.A concern was noted regarding the feasibility of the University’s projected percentage increases that are required to remain competitive with the AAUP Category IIB 80th percentile group. It was acknowledged that the increases in the model are aggressive. However, the projected increases provide an illustration of the potential costs of our compensation program as we move forward. This exercise is informative to the Committee concerning future prioritization and decision-making. It was also noted that significant endowment growth is essential to the progression of our compensation program, given that the University is trying to moderate tuition increases.

Michael then presented faculty salary and compensation information taken from the IWU Benchmark Report, which contains numerous performance indicator comparisons with the University’s Peer/Aspirant Group. He noted that, in general, the comparisons would be similar to last year, since they represent the second year of our two-year salary freeze. In regards to average salaries, we are at the median of our Peer/Aspirant Group for assistant professors, but ranked 9th (out of 13) for associate and full professors. Compensation-wise, our assistant professors are just above the median of our Peer/Aspirant Group, while the associate and full professors are ranked 10th and 9th, respectively.

President Wilson mentioned that this is just the beginning of our conversation concerning compensation for FY 2013. Our next meeting will include budget data in order to facilitate our continuing discussion.

Future Topics
The Board of Trustees approved the University’s strategic plan in February of 2006. Given that the plan is approximately six years old, President Wilson would like to begin to develop a process for updating the plan. This process will involve revising some items in the current plan and adding others, depending on the progress we have made and new priorities that have emerged. Considering that the University’s self-study should be completed by mid-semester, we should use the wealth of information that is in this report to inform our decision-making. The revision of the strategic plan will be a yearlong effort. To get the process started, President Wilson suggested that the SPBC examine three or four strategic plans from other institutions, looking for areas of interest that we might want to incorporate into our plan.

The Committee will be provided with peer strategic plans to examine in the near future.

The meeting was adjourned at 1:16 p.m.

Distributed to all faculty and staff on January 24, 2012.